I don't want this to be a political blog. There are plenty of other sites for that. But we now face a national crisis of such serious proportions that it dwarfs other issues, such as global warming, health care, and middle-east peace. It now threatens the very fabric of our society, and directly affects every citizen. And I can remain silent no longer.
It's still September, and every store near me ALREADY HAS THEIR CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS UP!
I have nothing against the holidays, Mr. President. Peace on Earth and all that stuff. But moving them up as if they were being held in another time-zone or alternate universe is getting out-of-hand. As far as I know, Christmas hasn't budged in my lifetime. And treating every day like it was Christmas (like the stores seem to want me to do) is not helping.
The well-respected Nick documentary program, The Fairly Oddparents, has carefully researched what would happen if Christmas were held every day (Episode 107, air date 12-12-01 I have kids, OKAY!). Their conclusion? It would be catastrophic.
There also seems to be a degree of unintentional discrimination. For example, Hanukkah starts more than 2 weeks before Christmas this year, but I didn't see Hanukkah decorations going up 2 weeks before the Christmas ones. In fact, I haven't seen any at all yet. Or Kwanzaa stuff. Or Festivus. Or New Year's.
This seasonal perversion extends to other holidays, too. I mean, by January 2nd most stores are decked out with Easter junk, and on July 5th the Halloween crap is up.
So, Mr. President, I propose the following, federally mandated solutions (please note: I'm only including those holidays that retailers love. Let's face it, not many of us are out there buying gifts for Groundhog day or cards for Columbus day. I'm also leaving out local holidays like Delaware Statehood Day, the Montana Huckleberry Harvest Celebration, and the Byron, Illinois, Turkey Testicle Festival).
Valentine's Day Decorations will NOT be put up until the 3rd week of January.
St. Patrick's Day Decorations will NOT be put up until after March 1st.
Passover/Easter decorations will NOT be put up until after St. Patrick's day.
Independance day decorations (July 4th) will NOT be put up until the 3rd week of June.
Halloween stuff will NOT be put up before October 1st
Thanksgiving Stuff will NOT be put up before November 1st.
Christmas/New Year/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus stuff will NOT be put up until the day after Thanksgiving.
(Please note: there should be some flexibility here, as Hanukkah and Easter/Passover may vary, but decorations should NOT be hung more then 3 weeks prior to holiday onset).
An alternative plan would be to have a single annual holiday combining all of the above, called St. Christmukahpasseastkwanpatfourthnewfestgivingween. Decorations for the combined holidays may be hung for 30 days prior to this event, and MUST be removed the day after.
Punishment for business owners who violate these laws would be on a 3-step basis:
1st offense: Business license revoked for one month.
2nd offense: Tarred, feathered, and forced to eat fruitcake.
3rd offense: Drawn and quartered, then served with fava beans and a nice chianti.
Yours truly,
Ibee Grumpy, M.D.
(A special THANK YOU to my reader Linda, who sent me this totally awesome picture)
Awesome! Add my name to your fake petition!
ReplyDeleteYour first mistake was calling it Christmas. Its the "holiday" season now.
ReplyDeletepffft.
I dig your letter though. ;)
Well said good sir!
ReplyDeleteBut seriously though... it's awful right?
I second your motion! This holiday sh!t is re-effing-diculous. I also think the list should include a mandate to celebrate everyone's birthdays once a year in any corporate or educational environment. There's a health reason for this: all that birthday cake is perpetuating our ever-growing obesity epidemic. Come to think of it, all the holidays you've mentioned may be, too. A paranoid patient might say that all the holidays are government-designed to make us fat and broke. Frankly, I'm not sure I'd disagree with the sentiment....
ReplyDeleteI love this idea! I've told my hubby that something like this needs to be done. Haha!
ReplyDeleteI only have one change to suggest. The date for Easter decorations needs to be moved to March 1 on years when Easter falls in mid to late March. This would only affect the years 2013, 2016, 2024, 2027, 2032, 2035, 2043, 2046, and 2054. Those years, I need more time to get Easter material and make Easter dresses for my daughters than the St. Patrick day rule would allow. :)
But wait, there must be exceptions to these rules. Such as, say September 29th is the weekend, then Halloween decorations can go up the weekend before the 1st of October. And . . . well maybe I should admit I'm a little biased. After all I did have four yes (4) Christmas trees one year. I LOVE to decorate for the holidays. Maybe I'm crazy - who cares? Unto every season . . .
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. And the lone holiday should be represented by a white bearded turkey with a cotton tail, wearing a Yarmulke and holding a trick or treat bag.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU!!! I vote YES to your proposal! The only thing I would change is removing all traces the day after whichever holiday. A retailer should be able to mark its remaining merch down to 90% off to get rid of it for two days ONLY, THEN remove it all. I like bargain shopping after the holidays, but many times I am so sick of looking at the decorations I could puke anyway, so this point would not sway my vote.
ReplyDeleteThanks for FINALLY saying something about it!
What is wrong with fruitcake??
ReplyDeleteI second that! Add my name to your letter:)
ReplyDeleteHear, hear. This year the supermarket I work at in Australia had Hot Cross Buns for sale on January 2nd. That's just plain ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteYep! You are so right! My hubby and I walked into a store 3 weeks ago and they already had their Christmas stuff out! I turned to my hubby and said, "I don't remember my turkey-induced coma, but did Thanksgiving pass by me?" Furthermore, I don't remember being in a diabetic coma after eating all of the Halloween candy that wasn't given out to the neighborhood kids!
ReplyDeleteDear Dr Grumpy,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. This year the "back to school sales" were going before the kids had actually broken up! We have hot cross buns on sale in UK (used only to be available during the week up to Easter), an Halloween and Christmas are already being stuffed down our throats!
Fiz (Ibee Grumpy too!)
The fava beans and Chianti comment was a dead giveaway.......we know WHO you really are now! Dr. Lecter LIVES and practices in suburbia! And one day, one of your patients will go toooo far and-----CHOMP!!! OFF WITH HIS FACE!
ReplyDeleteAt one time, it was considered uncool to talk about premature ejaculation. Now just about every body has come to discuss this problem, and one day it may even be solved.
ReplyDeleteFortunately for us, Dr. Grumpy leads the way, or perhaps pulls on the reins, on the equally grave problem of premature celebration.
Control yourself, people! Do not enter a store with a display or item for a holiday until the time is ripe! Foreplay is fine, but as the good doctor alerts us, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Can we not wait a decent amount of time before we engage in holiday!
Hear frickin' hear!
ReplyDeleteWasn't Festivus the dude that replaced Chester on Gunsmoke?empsyng
ReplyDeleteAre they playing the Christmas Carols yet? ('cause that would just make me want to shoot somebody). I worked retail a few Christmases and we would pretend to have been too busy to notice when the music turned off after the x-mas cds ran out. If a customer or manager noticed and commented we would have to turn it back on but at least we would have had a break.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness it's not nearly that bad where I am. The Halloween decorations and candy displays seemed to go up at the beginning of September though and that was bad enough. I know the candy isn't going to go bad in 2 months but who wants to store it that long?
Hear Hear! I went to the Home Depot over the weekend to buy some mums for my porch and they had Christmas Trees with all the trimmings... I thought I had perhaps overmedicated myself and slept through Halloween and Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteFESTIVUS.
ReplyDeleteFor my readers unfamiliar with Festivus:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus
No friggin' kidding! I think they are trying to give retail sales a head start so they can report a strong Christmas buying season to increase buyer confidence. Well sure it's gonna look good when the Christmas selling season is 11 months long.
ReplyDeleteFinally, we're going to fight the onslaught! Thank you, Dr. Grumpy!
ReplyDeleteTurkey Testicle Festival?
ReplyDeleteGod, that just needed to be repeated, it is so freakin' BRILLIANT!
:)
ER's Mom- I hate to tell you this, but that one actually is real.
ReplyDeleteYou can google it. "Byron turkey testicle festival".
According to the town's website it will be held on October 10 this year.
No, I've never been.
Not sure if you know but what happened to the Margaritaville and Cross-polination Blogs. I miss them.
ReplyDeleteKat79-
ReplyDeleteCrass-pollination is on hiatus.
The other blog changed it's name to knucklehead, and can be found in my sidebar on the right.
Heck yea the turkey testicle festival! go northern illinois!There are actually a lot of turkeys up there. I can attest from when I lived up in rockford, I've hit 4 with my car!
ReplyDeletebut hey dr grumpy, at least you don't work in one of those stores seeing those damn decorations. let me tell you working on the actual holiday is horrible simply because of the god awful music they play.... ahhh retail pharmacy at it's finest.
Think about the candy associated with these holidays. The Halloween candy is already in the stores. The Christmas candy has been manufactured, and is sitting in warehouses. The Valentines candy is being made right now.
ReplyDeleteYum.
I went to the Turkey Testical
ReplyDeleteFestival. I had a ball.
OMG back to school shopping. Can we add that it MUST TAKE PLACE THE WEEK BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS? Because the Walgreens near my home looked at me as if I were INSANE trying to buy school supplies that week. They'd had their sale a month prior.
ReplyDeleteYou know, before orientation or all the school supply lists were even published.
Eyeroll.
Gads I hate retail.
If that passes, we can then work on the bill aimed at those consumers who leave their holiday lights up all year 'round. We could tell legislators that it promotes global warming.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up,we kept turkeys. Killing them was bad enough, I would never,ever consider EATING one of their testicles.(whatever way it's cooked) Just the thought makes me want to gag.
ReplyDeleteI went to the turkey testicle festival.. it was nuts.
ReplyDelete(sorry, I noticed a theme) :)
-Flavius
Was just at the local bulleye's store yesterday and low and behold there were Christmas items out, behind the Halloween merchandise. Wrong, just wrong.
ReplyDeleteDoes it ever feel like we just rush through one thing to the next - this bad habit of merchandising too early only adding to it....
once again Dr. G you have hit the nail on the head!
Love the fridge picture. Big thing on news last night - complaining about SF putting up some snowflakes already! They said it was a mistake...hopefully they didnt fire the newbie because it hit the news....Loved the interviews which ranged between the sappy "We need Christmas all year round" to the right-on "Put them up too early and no one will be in the spirit when the time comes".
ReplyDeleteIf someone could just come up with new and awesome Thanksgiving music or Halloween songs, we could listen to those a month in advance of the holiday.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree and recommend additional research performed by
ReplyDeleteGeorge of the Jungle, episode title: The Goat Of Christmas Presents
Air date 8:00 PM, December 21st 2007
Now that we have cross cultural references surely he will hear our plea!
Thriller, monster mash come to mind, I know there's alot of other halloween songs. We're just sorely lacking in Turkey Day songs. All I can think of there is Adam Sandler's.
ReplyDeleteAlso, that picture needs a star of david necklace to make it official. Although I suppose the pumpkin nose counts =P
-Flavius
I'm franticly looking for a vacation spot to hide during the holidays this year.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I’ll mail out my Christmas cards around October and then disappear on vacation…hahaha!!!
These holidays are getting ridiculous. I just barely recovered from back to school supplies shopping.
YES! That's a constitutional amendment I think I could really get behind!
ReplyDeleteI just heard a commercial on the radio today with the jingling sleigh bells advertising some Christmas concert. They have got to be FREAKIN' kidding...... I just want to go to Tahiti from mid-November to at least mid-January.
ReplyDeleteDr. G - A reply to your letter (fully understanding that your intent):
ReplyDeleteAs someone who works in retail (though I have managed to avoid the Black Friday and Christmas/Holiday crunch for the past couple years), I must advise that it is impractical to require that Christmas decorations cannot be allowed prior to Black Friday. This limitation would require the frustrated and often near-homicidal retail employees (yes, near-homicidal... and you thought Postal employees were bad...) to work overnight Thanksgiving Eve, Thanksgiving night, and likely Thanksgiving Day to completely reset sales floors. Perhaps you would consider amending you proposal to allow Christmas/holiday decorations to be displayed 1-2 weeks earlier.
Thank you!
~a retail employee and future medical professional...
Aurora IL requires seasonal decorations to be removed no later than 60 days following the holiday. Supposedly this law is the result of some alderman getting ticked off at some trailer trash constituents... And this from a town whose motto is 'the city of lights'.
ReplyDeleteAbout the pic: the nose probably does count, but what does the sickle mean? If Halloween, there is the Jack-O-Lantern and witch hat already. The SantaLeprechaunBunnyReindeer should be wearing a diaper and have a noisemaker in his mouth (for New Years), while holding a US FLAG (Independence Day)!! I don't know what would represent Festivus (well, I have an idea) or Kwaanza.
ReplyDeleteTotally, completely, magnificently awesome. I've been railing about this for years now. As a matter of fact, I've had a volunteer campaign going for some time. You might check out last year's postings...
ReplyDeletehttp://jimsuldog.blogspot.com/2008/10/thanksgiving-comes-first.html
or
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com/2007/11/thanksgiving-comes-first_16.html
Hear Hear!
ReplyDeleteSTILL one of the best rants about Thanksgiving, etc., that I've ever read. Thanks again!
ReplyDelete